Several years ago Pace e Bene’s International Trainings Coordinator, Veronica Pelicaric, created This Nonviolent Life, a project designed for people around the world to receive each and every day a thought-provoking quotation on the power and practice of active nonviolence.

The radiant wisdom of thinkers, writers, and activists has been enjoyed by a growing community of people worldwide ever since.

In February 2022, our dear friend Veronica Pelicaric died after a two-year struggle with cancer. Pace e Bene is honoring Veronica’s legacy by continuing this important project.

To do so, we have created The Quotes Council, a group of friends and colleagues of Pace e Bene to help sustain and carry on this work. With hindsight we came to appreciate the endless hours that Veronica devoted to culling through books and many other sources to make This Nonviolent Life a reality, and realized we needed a widening circle of collaborators to help match her prodigious labor!

If you have some quotes you would like to share, click the button or send them via info@paccebene.org.

Here are some of our colleagues who have been replenishing The Nonviolent Life by sending us stellar quotes about peace, justice, and nonviolence.

The Quotes Council

Dominique Mazeaud

Dominique Mazeaud is an artist whose ritual performances and installations are considered prayers. Her work in all forms reaches across art and the spiritual and celebrates the wonder of creation while mourning what has been lost or destroyed. Her passions are the Earth and Peace. She has written a memoir, The Heartist's Secret, hoping to get across that life is art and today art is for Earth's sake.

Carolyn Townes

Carolyn D. Townes, OFS is a spiritual life and leadership coach and a loss to life mindset strategist, where she uses faith-based principles to provide spiritual and emotional wellness to women moving from the pain of grief and loss to a new life of purpose and peace. Her passion and mission is to help them go from a place of tragedy and trauma to a place of peace and joy. 

Since professing as a Secular Franciscan in 2000, Carolyn has served in several leadership roles on the local, regional, national and international levels. She is currently the National Animator for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) for the Secular Franciscan Order. 

Carolyn weaves songs, stories and Franciscan joy into her talks, retreats and days of reflection. A native New Yorker, she currently lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. 

Cathy Nguyen

I am a Philly native in my third year, studying Peace and Justice and Theology at Villanova University.  I am very passionate about community organizing and meeting people where they are at, especially in looking at the issues of poverty and environmental destruction both locally and globally.

Emily Jang

My name is Emily Jang, and I am a third year student at Emory University. As a psychology and anthropology major with a concentration in health, my primary interest is in mental health and understanding how one’s identity affects various aspects of health. This identity not only includes one’s environment but the structural and interpersonal responses to an individual as well. Thus, various forms of violence– structural, symbolic, and direct–affect one’s health and self. As I have come to understand this notion, I have grown a passion to better understand and apply the knowledge I have gained to actively confront this violence and advocate for others. I hope to foster this passion continuously in my future profession in academia or directly in mental healthcare as well as in the present through organizations such as Nonviolence International.

Jim Crosby

Jim Crosby is an Episcopal Third Order Franciscan living in Austin, TX. He retired in 2020 after 27 years of teaching Theology to high school seniors. He is married to Tara, a retired registered nurse. Together they have three grown children, Justin, Andrew, and Clare, two Salvadoran foster sons, Carlos and Juan, and a growing collection of beautiful grandchildren. Active nonviolence has become increasingly central to his understanding of how we grow into our full humanity.

Nina Koevoets

Co-author, Engaging Nonviolence. Nina Koevoets has been studying nonviolence and conflict resolution for more than a decade. Her master in Conflict Resolution did not include what regular people can do to build peace, so she sought answers elsewhere. She joined a training program with the Metta Center for Nonviolence in the USA and worked several months in India and Israel-Palestine. These experiences gave her new perspectives and ideas about the challenges and potential of nonviolent action. In 2015 she implemented her own training courses.

Stephanie Van Hook

Stephanie N. Van Hook is the Executive Director of the Metta Center for Nonviolence and host of Nonviolence Radio. We at the Metta Center for Nonviolence encourage people in all walks of life to discover their innate capacity for nonviolence and to cultivate its power for the long-term transformation of themselves and the world, focusing on the root causes of dehumanization and ultimately all forms of violence. We aim to make the logic, history, and yet-unexplored potential of nonviolence more accessible to activists and agents of cultural change (which ultimately includes all of us), thereby empowering effective, healing, and principled action around the world.

Rivera Sun

Pace e Bene Advancing Nonviolence Coordinator. Author/Activist Rivera Sun is the Editor of Nonviolence News, a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent movements, and the author of many books and novels, including The Dandelion Insurrection and The Way Between. She serves on the Advisory Board of World Beyond War and Backbone Campaign. Rivera helps coordinate Action Week and our Nonviolent Cities Project. www.riverasun.com

Ken Butigan

Ken Butigan is a leading teacher, advocate and strategist of nonviolence. He has worked for decades with many social change movements and currently is Pace e Bene’s chief strategist for its Campaign Nonviolence National Week of Action. He teaches in the Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies Program at DePaul University in Chicago, and has published several books, including most recently Nonviolent Lives.

Eva Marie Bonanno

Eva Marie Bonanno is a dedicated forester and arborist with a profound love for soil microorganisms. Her career revolves around nurturing and preserving fruit trees and forests, understanding the intricate web of life beneath the ground, and fostering the growth of vibrant ecosystems. Beyond her professional pursuits, Eva's heart beats for a greater cause—the promotion of nonviolence and peace. She fervently believes in the power of the collective and humankind's age-old ability to work together.

A Note On Quotes

Our goal for This Nonviolent Life is to provide quotes that inspire you to consider how to incorporate nonviolence into your daily life. Some of these words come from people dedicated to principled nonviolence. Others come from people who had big impacts, including being responsible for harm (presidents, military leaders, etc.). Plenty more are from thinkers, writers, and people grappling with what violence and nonviolence mean. We can learn from all of their perspectives. We do not offer these quotes necessarily as the words of heroes, but as concepts to ponder on your own nonviolent path.

As such, we have also chosen to preserve the original language used in quotes to the best of our knowledge. In part, this makes it easier to look up quotes and find their sources to pursue more information and context as interests you. Leaving language we would otherwise change—gendered language comes up often—also demonstrates that even giants of nonviolence had gaps in their perception. Those quoted, regardless of their impact, are still humans, products of their time and the systems they lived in. Seeing language we disagree with allows us as readers to think honestly and critically about the source, and consider how we might continue to evolve and improve our approach to nonviolence.

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